1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging device that picks up a facial image of a person and attaches the facial image to an ID card in association with an ID card preparing device and an imaging method.
2. Description of Related Art
Typically, in an ID card preparing device for preparing a so-called ID card, such as a driving license, having a facial image and various certificates, the facial image to be attached to a the card is picked up by a CCD camera of an imaging device as an electronic image and composed with the contents (the name of the person, license number, employee number) of the card, and the ID card is then prepared by a printing device.
In this case, the image picked up by the imaging device is not immediately printed in the imaged state, but an image process is performed on the image data so as to center the face position as well as delete unnecessary parts around the face. The resultant image is then displayed, and when the resultant image is judged to be suitable, it is output to a printing device as a card preparation image.
Further, in recent years, in a portable imaging device such as a digital camera, a plurality of picked-up images can be listed on a display unit attached to the camera and the imaging result can be checked.
Furthermore, there is an ID card preparing device available that enables the standard size face picture of a picked-up facial image of an applicant to be attached to a license preparation application (hereinafter referred to as an application), and the face picture on the application is picked up by a scanner or the digital camera so as to take in as an electronic image, and the face picture and also the applicant intrinsic information (license number, employee number, etc.) recorded on the application are taken in.
In this case, there is a method (called a confirmation mode) for displaying the taken face picture on the display screen of the ID card preparing device and to proceed with the preparation by checking the face picture and applicant intrinsic information for each applicant by an operator. There is also a method (called an automatic mode) for continuously performing a an automatic preparation process for a plurality of applications by the ID card preparing device and issuing a card preparation interruption command by an operator only when defects are found during the continuous preparation.
However, as mentioned above, in an imaging device that picks up a face picture as an electronic image, a so-called framing process of adjusting the picked up facial image to a predetermined image size and moving the face to the center of the image frame is performed automatically, and the processing result is displayed so that the operator can judge whether the face is properly positioned and the eyes are not closed. When the electronic image is judged to be suitable, the imaging device goes to imaging of the next person to be imaged and the image of the previous person to be imaged is sent to the printing device for card preparation. The framing process requires a fixed time, so that when the next imaging is to be carried out after confirmation of the processing result, a waiting time for the process is required, which places a limit on continuous imaging.
Further, in listing images of a plurality of imaged persons, such as in a digital camera, a problem arises that the next imaging cannot be carried out during the listing and when a picked-up image at the beginning person is questionable and re-imaging is required, the person to be imaged has left, so that he cannot be re-imaged.
Further, in picking up a face picture image of an applicant by a scanner as an electronic image, in both the aforementioned confirmation mode and automatic mode, a facial image displayed on the display screen is only of the applicant under processing. So that, in case of faults occurring during the taking of a face picture, such as malfunctions of the scanner or a mismatch between a facial image and applicant intrinsic information, there is a risk that the ID card would be prepared as it is.